brown bag lunch: how i survive 9 hour days on campus

Weekdays are crazy for me. I'm out the door by 8am, at work from 9am-2pm, in class from 2:30pm-4:20pm and then banging my head on the dashboard from 4:30pm to usually sometime around 5/5:30pm because of the horrendous rush hour traffic that comes with being part of a school 60,000 students strong (even though I live less than 2 miles from campus).

I've made it a goal of mine this year to not only spend less money on fast food (and try avoiding fast food in general... chronic health conditions are not fond of that kind of cuisine) but to eat better in general!

Thats where my brown bag lunches come in.

I timed myself this evening. It took me 13 minutes to put this entire "meal" together. And it costs probably a lot less than I was spending last semester to get lunch at various places on campus. Tomorrow's food consists of:

• Pretzels (Rold Gold minis, about $3.50 for the bag of 13 serving sizes) $.27 per serving
• Hummus (Sabra, 2/$4 on sale at Publix last week, 10 servings per container)  $.20 per serving
• Greek yogurt (Chobani, 3/$4) $1.30
• Peach ($1.99/lb, on average they're about .5 lbs each) $1.00
• Sandwich consisting of
• Ever roast chicken (approx $5.00 for the entire package which usually lasts 5 or so sandwiches) $1.25 per serving
• Co-jack cheese (10 slices per package, usually around $3.50 per package) $.35
• Hamburger bun (On sale 8pack/$.97 this week at Publix!) $.12
• Fuze drink (not pictured, I usually get them 10/$10 at Publix) $1.00

WHOLE MEAL TOTAL: $5.49!

After I prepare all my food at night, I put it in my fridge. In the morning, I take out my ice pack from my freezer, throw it in my lunchbox with all my food and walk out the door. Simple as that.

Like I said, campus dining options are limited (especially if you like to snack frequently, like me) so buying THAT much food would be well over $15 if I bought everything on campus. If I were to take my $5.49 to any vendor in the student union, I would get a sandwich at Subway... and that's it. No drink. No snacks. Just stale bread, over-processed meat, "eh" cheese and scarce helpings of veggies. 

I hope if you're like me and spend most of your days at work or in class that you draw inspiration from this post and realize how much money you could be saving without really investing much time at all! 

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